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2 July, 2009The 32nd IMF World Congress took place in Gothenburg at the end of May. The financial crisis and a global response from metalworkers to ensure secure jobs for a secure future was the central theme during discussions, resulting in the adoption of a four year Action Programme.
Text / Congress communications team
The 32nd IMF World Congress held in Gothenburg, Sweden, demonstrated both the value and increasing need for global cooperation between metalworking unions.
Over four days, nearly 800 union leaders from all over the world were brought together to debate common strategies to improve the working lives and conditions of metalworkers globally.
The current global economic crisis and the serious difficulties working people face was a major topic of discussion at Congress. It was noted by several speakers that the crisis is of historic proportions and what began in the financial markets has reached the metal industry, representing a huge threat to workers' jobs and income security.
Commenting on the crisis, keynote speaker Heiner Flassbeck, former deputy finance minister in Germany, now head of UNCTAD's Division on Globalization and Development Strategies, argued that governments must step in and regulate markets and that deflation, especially wage deflation, must be avoided. "A reduction of wages is the biggest threat to the economy. For that reason wage deflation must be avoided at all cost," he said.
Congress delegates were united in their call on governments and corporations to urgently engage with unions to find socially acceptable and equitable solutions to the global economic crisis, adopting a declaration on the subject.
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